General Meeting 18th January 2012

ITA agrees to mobilise
maximum support for the Haringey demonstration on Saturday 28 January.

Prioritisation of NUT National Conference
motions.

ITAprioritises motions 15,17,41,57,61 and
64

Pensions motion 1

This union
meeting notes that the Heads of Agreement “offer” made by the government to
teaching unions on December 19th still means that we would have to
pay more, work longer and get a smaller pensions.

We note that
the government is still intent on:

i)increasing
our pension contributions by 50%;

ii)raising the retirement age for teachers
to 68;

iii)introducing a pension based on a career
average rather than final salary;

iv)using CPI, rather than RPI, as the
index for annual increases in our pensions.

These are the
measures against which we took strike action on June 30th and
November 30th and for these reasons we believe the NUT was right not
to sign up to the Heads of Agreement.

We note that
the NASUWT and UCU have also refused to sign up to the Heads of Agreement.

We note that
whatever concessions the government has made have only come as a result of our
campaign and strike action, but go nowhere near enough to meet our concerns.

We believe
that the campaign to defend our pensions must continue and that this should
involve further strike action.

We call upon
the NUT National Executive to draw up plans for further strike action and to
discuss these with other unions who have also refused to sign the Heads of
Agreement.

We therefore
agree to indicate our support for:

i)the
decision of the NUT to reject the Heads of Agreement document;

ii)further
strike action in defence of our pensions.

Pensions Motion 2

Islington Teachers Association congratulates the NUT Executive, on the
pensions campaign so far, especially for the role the NUT played building the
united strikes on June 30th and November 30th last year.

We also congratulate all school reps for the role they have played in
building the campaign and for making sure that members are kept informed about
the Union’s position.

We endorse the union leadership on their decision to reject the
government’s latest proposals – which still amount to teachers having to “pay
more, work longer and get less”.

We endorse the attempts the Union has made to secure the widest possible
agreement with other unions, and teaching unions in particular, in rejecting
the government’s proposals and continuing to fight to defend pensions.

We further endorse plans to open a national ballot on action over
workload and other key issues, including performance management.

We support the aim of talking to other unions with a view to securing
the widest possible agreement on calling further national strike action as soon
as possible to defend our pensions.

We believe the Union should be ready to call such strike action
alongside other unions willing to do so.

We believe that there is a real urgency in taking such action – as the
government’s proposals currently mean teachers will face a pay cut in April,
when the first wave of increased pensions contributions is due to be imposed.

We, therefore call on the National Executive to:

i)name a day for a
national strike at its meeting on 25th January, and that such action
should preferably be before half-term and no later than the end of February;

ii)draw up plans for an
escalating programme of action to achieve our pensions objectives, beginning
with a further one day strike in March.

Sixth Form Ballot

Islington Teachers Association welcomes the national ballot of NUT
colleagues working in Sixth Form Colleges.

We fully support their demands that funding cuts should be withdrawn
and that employers should honour their commitment to begin closing the
gap in sixth form teachers’ pay relative to that of school teachers.

We recognise that planned 12% cash cuts in entitlement funding over
four years are already resulting in course cuts, job losses, larger
class sizes and increased contact time to the detriment of both
teachers and students.

If sixth form college colleagues vote for action to achieve their
demands, ITA agrees to give them whatever assistance necessary to
ensure that their fully justified campaign is successful.